#LucysLetter: The Children of the Greenhouse Age

By Vincent Lowry

Susan Gold is convicted of first degree murder for the killing of an abusive boyfriend, and during the first few months of her thirty-year sentence she gives birth to her only child—Lucy Gold. Susan’s life is cut short shortly after her labor, leaving Lucy completely in the dark about her biological parents as she’s raised by her grandma and uncle, who hide the family’s shameful past.
When Lucy reaches the age of twelve in the drought-ravaged town of Lake Sabrina, California, she devises a strategy to expose the family’s secret. Her plan fails, but Lucy’s grandma surprises her by coming to terms that Lucy is now old enough to know the long-concealed truth. The knowledge of her mother’s crime, and father’s abuses, both shocks Lucy’s conscience and shapes her identity, ultimately setting her on a path of utilizing her life for the good of society.
Filled with droughts, coastal floods, and violent storms, Lucy’s Letter – The Children of the Greenhouse Age follows Lucy, and the adolescents along her path, through a polluted world in disarray and turmoil, leading up the climatic letter that Lucy writes to be the final motivation for people to focus on what matters most—preserving the planet.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vincent Lowry
• Release date: Dec 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781495184307

Vincent Lowry

#LucysLetter is Vincent Lowry’s fourth book. His other works are Surfing the Seconds, Dreams Reign Supreme, and Constellation Chronicles. Vincent was educated at Tulane University in New Orleans, and he lives in Southern California with his son.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Lucy Gold only knew two credible facts about her mother: her name was Susan, and she had been in shackles on the day she had given birth to her only child. Everything else about Susan Gold was shrouded in myth and conjecture. If Lucy listened to the incessant teasing of the kids at Richards Middle School, she could count at least a dozen crimes her mother had committed—assault, robbery, and murder, to name just a few. One perfidious boy, Jack Gleeson of the seventh grade, went so far as to claim that Susan had executed three bank tellers at point-blank range, and his dad now owned the gun she had used. Lucy, never shy, pressed Jack to show his evidence.

You’re lying and you know it, Jack! Lucy said, her voice almost as commanding as that of Clara Gold, her sagacious grandma. My mother didn’t rob a bank or shoot anybody!

How do you know? Jack asked, grinning with three of his playground buddies. Jack’s milky white belly always protruded from shirts that were too small for his portly frame. He looked out of place next to his slender friends. It’s true. My dad’s a cop. I’ll bring the gun in tomorrow!

Lucy’s hazel eyes burned with anger. Her fists were clenched so tightly that her knuckles turned bone white. You do that, Jack! I bet you all the pearls in the world you don’t have it. All the diamonds, too!

You’ll see, Lucy. Tomorrow I’m going to be rich. I’ll get it in the morning from my dad’s room and bring it. Meet me at the front gate before school starts.

Lucy said she would, and did. The next day, Jack, and his belly, never showed.

Months later, when Lucy told her grandma about yet another argument she had at school with a different kid in her classroom (a girl, this time), she was promptly told to ignore the gossip and fuss regarding her mother. Past is past, Lucy-Lu, Grandma Clara said, hunched over the kitchen sink and filling Lucy’s cup with a third of her daily ration of water. The digital meter on government-issued smart-pour faucet read 4.76. Past is past is what Lucy’s grandma always said when it came to the subject of her daughter. Nothing more could be discussed after those words were uttered; breaching that invisible wall was as futile as trying to jump to the moon.

Peanut butter again… Lucy whined, staring at the lunch her grandma had prepared. The sandwich lay like a flat white brick in the center of potato chips and baby carrots.

Grandma Clara nodded, fixing the bun that held her grey strands of hair in a packed ball. The market was out of fish, sweetie. Sorry, but this will have to do until I go back again.

Lucy took her water and lunch and made for the backyard patio, her long brunette hair bouncing on her tan shoulders. It was late November, but the air felt like it always did to Lucy this time of year: hot and soupy with no chance of relief. It was as if she were under the sheets of her bed, playing games with her cat, and unable to toss those sheets aside when her lungs screamed for help. Those sheets were ever-present over Lake Sabrina, relentlessly baking the land.

Timmy givin’ you problems again?

Lucy, sitting on the doorstep, moved her eyes from the few bites she had taken from her sandwich and fixed them on Uncle Neil. He rocked in a wicker swing while clad in jeans and a grey t-shirt, an unopened beer in hand. The old swing creaked as it slowly swayed back and forth, a forlorn sound that seemed to be the voice of the aged two-story house itself that Lucy, Uncle Neil, and Grandma Clara called home.

It’s nothing, Lucy said, depositing a carrot in her mouth while shifting weight from her right side to her left. The doorstep was in the shade, but it was still hot as hell—stinging her just sitting on it.

Uncle Neil’s weathered, leathery face studied Lucy as he effortlessly cracked open his beer can without looking down. Imported alcohol was one of the few items not rationed or regulated by the Drought Relief Act. Compromises had to be made; Uncle Neil liked to joke to his card buddies that there was a lobbyist guardian angel looking over his shoulder, keeping an eye out on his only luxury.

If that Timmy fella keeps jawing, I’m going to fix that mouth with my fist, Uncle Neil said, training his blue eyes on an emaciated crow scavenging for food.

It’s not Timmy.

No? I thought you said Rachel left to live with her cousins? Flew the coop, like everyone else in this damn state.

It’s not Rachel, either. I don’t want to talk about it, Uncle Neil. Okay?

Lucy took another bit of her sandwich, then washed it down with water that had a hint of a taste of lemon. Lucy hated the artificial flavor. She knew they just put it in to mask the chemical byproduct of the pipes and containers in which the water had been filtered and pumped.

Suit yourself, Uncle Neil replied, sipping from his beer, letting out a fart as he did so. Lucy used to laugh whenever he, or anyone else, passed gas. But that was a different Lucy of many rusty sunsets ago, a little girl who didn’t have to come to terms with her family’s past.

The gaunt crow took flight, either frightened by the sound of the flatulence or disappointed by the prospects of food.

Ever talk to that Rachel friend of yours, by the way? Uncle Neil finally asked after a long pause. Was it New Hampshire she moved to?

Maine, Lucy said, shooing a fly from her plate, then wiping a patch of sweat from her forehead. The temperature gauge behind her read 108°F. Uncle Neil had nailed it up on a support beam two summers back, the day Lake Sabrina hit its second hottest afternoon on record: 129°F. Near Augusta, they said.

That’s right, her uncle replied, kicking his swing out and nodding as if the location had been told to him one minute ago rather than four months. I remember all the hype they spit at us now. The vineyards from heaven. The shorts and shirts you could wear year-round. The beaches of paradise.

Yeah, well, I don’t look for her on the sites anymore, and she only called me once. A year ago.

For your 11th birthday, Grandma Clara said from inside the house, standing just a few feet behind Lucy. She wore a faded apron that said To Cook is to Love, an anniversary gift from her late husband. He had also given her a matching chef’s hat, but that had been lost long ago. Such a sweet girl. Too bad they left.

Good riddance, Uncle Neil shot back. They were snotty and never did anything worth a rat’s turd around here anyway. Too bad they didn’t go southeast and wash away with everyone else.

Hush, Grandma Clara said sternly. Watch that language around Lucy, Joe.

Joe was Neil’s middle name. It often took priority over his first whenever he took his opinions too far, which happened frequently when he drank, lobbyist guardian angel or not.

I’ve heard turd a million times, Grandma, Lucy said, giggling as she said it.

Well I don’t like that word. It’s uncivilized.

Uncivilized! Now it was Uncle Neil who was laughing. His laughter soon dissolved into a raspy cough, which lasted for a minute before he could speak again. Hell…take a look at our American Dream, Mom. Our plot of the great frontier.

Hell, too. That’s another word not to be used around this house. And our property is just fine. Got it better than most folks.

Lucy stared at the last remaining bites of her sandwich, swearing to herself that she heard this conversation between her uncle and grandma at least two or three times a week…perhaps more. She had become inured to it. It was always about who had stayed, moved, gone broke, gone six feet under, and gotten into trouble. That was the catalyst. The conversation then turned to the current state of California, the 86-year-long drought that was punishing all corners of what her uncle called the big three F’s: farms, forests, and fields. It was a pointless conversation as far as Lucy was concerned. Even at the age of twelve, she knew the three F’s had already burned or withered beyond repair. She could see it around her at Lake Sabrina: black jagged stumps that had once been healthy trees surrounded by layers of ash where the undergrowth had once flourished; abandoned motorboats lying in the sand beside crumbling docks that hadn’t seen water in fifteen presidents; faded white marks on tall boulders serving as a reminder of the days when the lake had once been a popular fishing and swimming getaway for residents of Los Angeles, Fresno, San Francisco, and Vegas.

Lucy found it ironic that she knew so much about the history of Lake Sabrina—established in 1907 by the damming of Bishop Creek and named after Mrs. Sabrina Hobbs, wife of the first General Manager of California Nevada Power Company, the company that built the dam—and yet so little about her own history. Grandma Clara’s selective conversations, her insistence that past is past, and Uncle Neil’s typical tangents ensured Lucy’s ignorance would remain fixed for quite some time unless she came up with a crafty strategy to change things. Her strategy needed to bypass her Grandma’s protectiveness, steer through her uncle’s randomness, and do it at a time when only Lucy would be listening so that others wouldn’t tease her even more when the truth finally came out.

What? Did you say Susan Gold was a serial killer and a disease-spreading whore who slept with everyone in town? I knew it! Boy, I can’t wait to share this with everyone!

Lucy could just picture the kids at school going nuts upon hearing news that was juicer than the gossip they had cooked up over the years. Kids—specifically the pusillanimous ones with shirts too small for their fat-ass piggy bellies—would make every effort to embarrass and demean her so they could get a couple of stupid laughs at her expense. Her mother was just a joke to them. They had dehumanized her as if she were a beast, an animal whose name was spoken only when needed to amplify the punch line of their comic gag.

Lucy swore she would make sure their ignorance would remain all the way to their graves; they could gossip and laugh all they wanted now, but someday a nettlesome part of them (albeit only a fraction of the curiosity that boiled in Lucy’s veins) would eat at their core and force them to wonder just what the hell really happened to Susan Gold. They would never know the truth.

Lucy would. She already had a plan in mind.

You finish those carrots, Lucy-Lu, Grandma Clara said, now outside and brushing off the crumbs on her To Cook is to Love apron. You need real vitamins. Those inhalants don’t do a darn thing as far as I’ve seen.

They taste kinda yucky, Grandma. Dry.

Grandma Clara’s eyes shot to Uncle Neil. If a look could kill, Uncle Neil’s body would have burst into flames right at that moment, his remains looking much like the nearby scorched tree stumps.

What? Uncle Neil asked innocently.

I told you to put that bag away yesterday when you got it out. You left it on the counter again, didn’t you?

Now hold on here…

Didn’t you?

Her eyes tore through Uncle Neil. He dropped his gaze, surrendering.

I cannot believe you, Joe. Now I get to add another item to my list. You know how expensive those veggie bags were the last time I went? Double what they were last year. And they’re making ‘em smaller, too. I swear in two years it will just be the bag they’re selling.

Lucy giggled. She immediately stopped when her grandma’s glare burned in her direction.

Won’t happen again, Mom, Uncle Neil said. If it weren’t for the beer in his hand, at that moment he could have passed for a repentant, overgrown choirboy. I promise.

Grandma Clara shook her head, brushed her apron one last time, and reentered the house. When the sound of her footsteps passed a safe distance, Uncle Neil turned to Lucy.

"You little skunk. They taste kinda yucky…"

Sorry, Uncle Neil. I shouldn’t have said that. I completely forgot what you told me last night. Thanks for not ratting me out. I’ll remember next time.

Uncle Neil just shrugged it off as if he’d been through a million of Grandma Clara’s scoldings (which

Reviews for #LucysLetter

[lib3books · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.A very inspiring tale, warning about climate change and how we can change to save our world. Despite the heavy subject matter and intended message, the author manages to avoid coming across as preachy by spinning a creative story to share this message.This really felt like a great addition to the apocalyptic/cli-fi genre, taking a unique turn by looking at the long-term effects of global warming, rather than all of it happening in one day. I had problems with the dialogue and time span. The dialogue of the main character was much older than her, especially since she lives at least 80 years in the future, so it was a major disconnect with her age. There were also several time jumps in the book but while one character aged many years, another would only age a couple years, so the author seemed to have lost track of how much time had actually passed.I liked the overall story but these aspects did prevent me from fully connecting with the characters.